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I REALLY enjoyed the big birthday bash for the Madiba, Nelson Rohlihlahla Mandela. Ian Smith, sorry Will Smith and his pretty wife Jade were in full flight at perhaps the biggest birthday ceremony in the world. About 3.8 million views watched in the UK alone courtesy ITV and 46,664 people “partied” in Hyde Park. Previous Mandela party ratings on TV have reached over 600 million viewers and I guess it was the same for this as well. The line up of wonderful movers and shakers in the entertainment world was incredible. All the politicians such Bill Clinton and up coming politician daughter Chelsea were there. Prime Minister Gordon Brown was at his best to play the good host in the private box with Nelson Mandela. I do not recall seeing David Cameron.

I noticed David Lammy enjoying Eddy Grant’s popular brilliant popular song Joanna. And Amy Winehouse was there. Well did I hear Naomi Campbell had been barred from coming whilst Amy Winehouse was allowed in to perform? What was she doing with the hem of her garment? What was the basis for the selection anyway? Good behaviour? Well. It was also good that on the eve of this birthday bash the US congress voted to unmake Mandela a terrorist. Yes unthinkable as it is for all these years Mandela in the statute books of America was on the same scale as the man thought to be hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan.

He was barred from the USA and needed the secretary of states approval for a waiver before he could land on US soil. Under the legislation, members of the ANC of which Mandela was the leader could travel only to the United Nations headquarters in New York but not to Washington DC or other parts of the United States.

If I was Mandela after becoming President of South Africa, I would have worried Jim Baker, Magdalene Albright, General Collin Powell and Condi rice with so many requests for waivers that they would have grown tired of me and so would have taken my name off the list a long time ago. But as his nature is, he rather responded by making apartheid’s last white leader F.W. de Klerk, his deputy when he became president. He indeed is a peaceful and harmless man whose only crime was to ask for his freedom. Indeed the future and fight against AIDS and human suffering is in our hands now. He has done enough now for the world. I will want to applaud the organisers of the event for the courage and sympathy they have had for children and people suffering from AIDS all over the continent of Africa. It really is in our hands now to be better people so we can follow the Madiba’s example.

As I watched the now frail man walking with the help of his wife Graca and having to rely on her to know when to wave and speak and smile, I could not help but ask myself why did this man have to spend 27 years of his life as prisoner 64464, What did he do wrong? Was his asking for his freedom not a fundamental human rights issue? Did he even have to ask for his freedom at all? Yet he became prisoner 64464. What role did the world play in propping up, strengthening the hands or helping to dismantle apartheid. What role did Britain especially play whilst this man counted the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and the 27 years in jail as prisoner 64464.

I am too young to have witnessed the situation when Apartheid was in full operation but the books I have read, the films I have watched, speeches I have heard and everything around the system tells me that it was an evil system that should not have been allowed to survive for so long at all. Yet my read around led me to a study by Rita M. Byrnes, on South Africa: A Country Study for the Library of Congress, 1996 which indicated that South Africa’s closest European ties then was with Britain, particularly with its Conservative Party- led governments. More than 800,000 white South Africans retained the right to live in Britain, although official ties weakened after South Africa left the British Commonwealth in 1961 Britain supported the 1977 Commonwealth decision to discourage sporting links with South Africa to register international disapproval of apartheid, but Britain’s refusal to impose broader sanctions came under attack at subsequent Commonwealth heads of government meetings, especially in 1985, 1987, and 1989. I wonder what the British press then used to write about. I guess words such as natives, indigenous people, heathens; piccaninies, etc often represented the oppressed.

My few years experience of following the British press makes me conclude that just like no one questioned why Miss Winehouse should play at the bash whilst Miss Campbell is barred, nice and big tonal sounding Oxbridge words were used to justify why Britain was to still play Cricket with South Africa. “South African white teams did not, however, establish any bilateral links with non-white countries. For example, in the field of cricket, white teams from South Africa exchanged visits with teams from Australia, New Zealand and England but not with teams from the West Indies, India or Pakistan, though all these countries were members of the Imperial Cricket Conference (ICC) until 1961. There is no record of the cricketing bodies of England, New Zealand or Australia expressing concern, let alone opposition, to this extension of racialism to the international level.

Since membership of the ICC is open only to Commonwealth countries, South Africa lost its membership when it left the Commonwealth in 1961. But that has made no difference in that the white members of the ICC still continue to exchange visits with racially selected teams from South Africa”. Is this unfortunate history of Britain the reason why Zimbabwe’s undemocratically elected President Robert Gabriel Mugabe is able to challenge Britain about it’s past in Africa? Is this the reason why after all the glaring evidence available to who ever wishes to know about the intimidation and torture in Zimbabwe, Mugabe seems to still enjoy some support amongst African leaders? Is this history why African leaders threatened to boycott the Euro Africa Summit in 2007 if Mugabe was barred from coming as Britain demanded? Robert Mugabe is a real dictator of the highest order and must be condemned by all. Even his loyal supporters know that. They just blindly support for a hidden agenda. I was really looking forward to his being denied a seat at the just ended Africa Union summit in Egypt. How can he for instance explain why it took five weeks to declare the results of the first run of elections in Zimbabwe in which he lost yet the second round of which he could not loose was declared after just two days. What about the the torture, maiming and burning of houses of defenseless people we saw on T.V. The calculated frustration of the opposition MDC is a big indictment on Zanu-PF and Mugabe himself. Injustice whether perpetrated against whites or blacks must be condemned as such.

And so that is why I wonder if Britain and the world powers cannot even today seek to address the injustice about land ownership in Zimbabwe. Was it not better for Britain to have paid for the land distribution so that it’s “Kith and kin” could still live in peace instead of having an albatross of a leader looking for the opportunity to insult and rub in more salt whenever he had the opportunity. “Take your Britain and let me take my Zimbabwe” He keeps repeating. I urge the British press to ask questions and seek answers. Don’t just take it like that because the matter is from Africa. There is a lot of progress on the continent and even a closer look at the rogue nations will find a European hand twisting affairs. Mandela would never have spent 27 years in jail his demand for freedom was considered as of the same level as for instance a European demanding his freedom. Today we are all talking about how wonderful Nelson Mandela is. Everyone who has been close to him tells you his presence affects you. Commentaries, films, speeches and birthday parties have been organised to honour him yet no one, or organization, nor nation has been able to or wants to answer the question why did the world look on as prisoner 64464, Nelson Rohihlahla Mandela was robbed of 27 years of his life on Robben island.

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